Exciting News and Breakthroughs in August!

Some of the exciting successes we have seen in the past months are two new, very skilled volunteers who are helping with proofreading our mailings and a writer who will volunteer his time and skills. We also learned of a 30-minute TV program that airs on CTN called “All Over the World” (http://www.aotw.tv/),which highlights a different mission organization each month. When I first saw the program, I was very impressed with its quality and thought how great it would be for Serve India Ministries to have a piece like this. The problem was that these types of documentaries filmed on location usually cost about $1,800 per minute to produce professionally, which would run about $54,000. I called the program anyway just to learn more and was very surprised to learn that the airtime was donated by the network and the producer raised his support so that he could produce the documentaries at a minimal cost: $4,000 plus travel expense to the field! This was great news, but we still didn’t have the $4,000, so I began to spread the word to people I knew. I was glad to tell a small mission organization here in Kansas City about the opportunity, thinking that they would jump at the chance to have a video made about their organization, but they called me the next day and told me that they would like to pay for our production cost! Imagine it - another mission organization is paying for our video! Now this show will be filmed on location in India in January and air in March on a network of 40 million people and another network of 150 million people worldwide. Please be in prayer for this project because it can be a great help in recruiting not only donors but volunteers and full-time staff as well.

Beware of Charging Elephants

(Pastor tells of dangers while visiting area villages)
Pastor S grew up among the tea plantations in the jungles of South India. He and his family were laborers on this tea plantation for many generations. Tea plantation workers are very poor and often go without education and proper medical care. As a child, Pastor S grew up badly affected by sickness and was not able to enjoy a normal childhood. The family constantly prayed to their idols, but he only became worse. Finally at the age of 21, Pastor S was invited to a church meeting and heard the Gospel message. Touched by the Word of God, he eagerly trusted the Lord for his salvation and over time received God’s grace to be healed of his afflictions. Pastor S began to be discipled in a local church, growing in his love for Jesus and love for lost souls. As God was equipping Pastor S, he began to assist his pastor, and in 1987 he surrendered his life to full-time ministry. Now Pastor S has planted a church and has partnered with Serve India ministries to plant 5 more churches in area villages. The area where Pastor S ministers is deep jungle where there are many dangers among the trails, including wild elephants that have been known to kill those who cross their path. Pray for Pastor S and the other 19 pastors who work with him as they each have a goal to plant 5 churches in the unreached villages around them. Imagine that in 5 years, there will be 100 new churches in this unreached district, preaching the Gospel and making disciples! Pray for the safety of these pastors that as they walk along the jungle trail, they will always return home to their families. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

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What is a Development Plan?

• As I have written to you in past months, I often refer to our “Development Plan.” I have our development plan taped on my wall in front of my desk. The development plan is the outline of all of the planned activities for the next 18 months to help grow Serve India Ministries to fund our work in Asia. We hope to grow from 450 pastor-missionaries that we partner with to 800 by the end of the year so it will take many new donors to accomplish this goal. Our development plan consists of items such as:
  
  
  Key Initiatives:
• milestones, goals
• Home school conference booths
• Mission conference booths
• speaking engagements at churches and home
  meetings
• special mailings, newspaper articles
• video projects, web projects,
  brochures, radio interviews, annual reports
• online giving projects, volunteer
  recruitment goals, sponsorship goals
• database growth, organizational goals and
  social networking to name a few
  
  The bottom line for all of this activity is that it must enable Serve India Ministries to complete its mission of partnering with 20,000 pastor-missionaries, which in turn will fulfill the vision to plant 100,000 churches. Our “Vision” is our compass, letting us know where we are going, and our “Mission” is our road map telling us how we are going to get there.

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Erwin Family News

We are thankful recipients of God’s grace, which has allowed us to partner with you and serve 450 pastors in India that are now working in over 2,000 villages preaching the Gospel of Salvation! Janey and I are so blessed to see Benjamin growing up to be a man of God. He is doing well in his schooling in math, English, spelling, history, science and Bible study. I was looking over his math paper the other day, and I was impressed with how easily he figured out some math problems on his own that I thought he would need help with. Needless to say, we are very proud of our boy!

Janey is doing a wonderful job homeschooling Ben, learning patience and the art of persuasion of a strong-willed child. Benjamin has enjoyed learning the game of golf after a successful summer of bowling. It’s funny, the feedback that we received from his golf coach is that he doesn’t follow instructions and he is unsafe with the clubs. I guess we have some areas to work on! I think we have a normal 7 year old. Please continue to pray for Janey that she might receive relief from headaches as she continues to receive therapy from a headache specialist. On October 3 we will celebrate our 29th anniversary of our first date: homecoming 1980, Harrison, Arkansas.

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Does Your Church Make Witch Doctors Lose Sleep?

(“My powers became powerless when the TRUE GOD’S power empowered me”)

Serve India Ministries partners with 60 pastors in the South India state of Karnataka. Karnataka has a population of 53 million and about .7% are born-again Christians. There is much opportunity for the work of the Gospel in this state but also much opposition from anti-Christian elements and witch doctors.

One of Serve India's pastors, Pastor G, working near the city of Bangalore in Karnataka recently ministered in a community where a man named Kumar, who was a witch doctor operating through demonic powers. Kumar made a lot of money through his magic with the help of evil spirits. Pastor G's church grew and was affecting this community as the Gospel was being preached and many people were being saved. These local people were no longer seeking out the witch doctors services.

Kumar was determined to disrupt the church's service by using his black magic. For three years, Kumar tried all his magic but to no avail. Finally he decided that he would attend a Sunday service and see what really went on at this church. The evil spirit did not allow him to sit at the church and he was forced to go back home. From that time on, Kumar could not have a peaceful night's sleep and feared for his life. Often the very demons that these witch doctors serve will in time kill them. Now, Kumar could no longer perform magic and all his evil powers were gone.

Fearing the evil spirits, Kumar approached the pastor with his problems, and Pastor G showed the love of Christ to him and shared the message of the Gospel. As they prayed together, the power of Jesus was present and the evil spirit left him. Kumar was filled with the joy of salvation! Our new brother in the Lord later testified,
"My powers became powerless when the TRUE GOD'S power empowered me."
Now he attends the church regularly and is helping Pastor G in outreach as he partners with Serve India Ministries to plant 5 more churches in the surrounding communities.

You can help pastors just like Pastor G preach the Gospel to others like Kumar who are mired in sin and demon worship.

Click Here to Sponsor A Missionary Pastor for $35 per Month

Doing the Math on India - 1,400,000 churches needed

The vision of Serve India Ministries is to help plant 100,000 churches in India. Why so many churches? Over the past decade much has been reported about the possibility of an awakening of the low caste of India. There are 700 million low caste in India who are scattered across India’s 500,000 unreached villages. India is one of the greatest harvests in history!

Doing the math

Doing some math, one could estimate that if only 10% of this 700 million people would turn to Christ in the next 10 years that an additional 1,400,000 churches would be needed to disciple them. This is a very conservative figure estimating that the average village church is 50 people. Serve India Ministries’ goal of planting 100,000 churches fits well with God’s plan for the low caste of India.

Where there is smoke there is fire

One example of these massive conversions can be seen in the state of Orissa in Eastern India. **In one district near the area where the Australian missionary Graham Stains was martyred, the Christian population has more than doubled in the last 10 years. **So many have been turning to Christ that approximately 100,000 Christians had to flee their homes and thousands of others were murdered.

We must go to them

We cannot assume that the low caste people of India are able to hear the Gospel without someone telling them. Churches must not only send the Gospel out to every unreached village (Mark 16:15-17) but they must also make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). We invite you to help us reach the low caste of India and plant 100,000 churches by sponsoring a missionary pastor for $35 per month or supporting a Stepping Stone Center, teaching 50 children for $150 per month.


Sponsor a Missionary/Pastor for $35 per month

Sponsor a Stepping Stone for $150 per month

**Read Orissa violence report from the "All India Christian Council".